A Lagenlook-drafting tale...

This was bound to happen.

Over the past few weeks I've sewn three dresses with a Lagenlook vibe. And I love them. One thing they all have in common is a plethora of pattern pieces - lots of pieces and seaming to get that iconic fly-away/belled look.

Being totally without anything else I HAD to do, I started thinking about drafting a simple dress - front, back, and sleeve - that would mimic those lines. It would be as easy to sew as a tee shirt dress.









Fun project! I decided to use the skirt from the StyleArc Toni Designer Dress and the bodice from the Sewing Workshop Cityscapes Dress.

A little time on the floor, with both patterns and more tissue on top, and I had something to sew. 

Actually, this first version isn't bad - but it is very unstructured through the body and sleeve. I do like the fabric (a pre-cut rayon/cotton/lycra jersey from Fabric Mart), so I'll re-sew this as a tunic in the spring. It will be great over white leggings.

Not deterred, I went back to work. This time I kept the skirt from my first draft, and added the bodice from Sandra Betzina's knit dress, V1297. 

The Betzina dress has a more narrow bodice and a French dart for shaping. And it has a nice slim sleeve.

Success!

I'll be able to whip one up in no time - the dress at the top of this post was sewn just that way :-) Now I'm off to see what else I can do to make a mess in the loft. I'm thinking a nightgown.

Ciao! Coco

The Sewing Workshop - Cityscapes Dress...

Happy New Year! and my apology that I've been slow to respond to comments on the blog. Busy time!

I was so excited to get back to sewing after all my visiting with family - because I found a new pattern one night, while watching The Christmas Story and cruising the web.

This is Linda Lee's Cityscapes dress. I think it was first released around 2002, along with an apron-like topper. And now the dress, by itself, is available from The Sewing Workshop as a PDF download.

My first Sewing Workshop pattern!

It has great lines - simple, symmetrical and definitely Lagenlook:

The original release reminds me of Sonia Rykiel's Vogue 1379 Sandwich Dress from 1976.

My fabric is deep brown and does not photograph well, so I lightened all the pics a bit. Squint please.

Sewing this pattern was so much fun. It's a little quirky, but goes together beautifully. The pic below shows the basic layout of both the front and the back. I had to sit and look at it for a while. I knew the dart was continuous, bust/upper back to hem. But part of the dart, the 'bell' curve, is removed when the pattern is cut out, not when it's sewn. 

Once I played a mental game of connect the dots (there are a generous number of them, defining the dart sewing line), I was OK. There are four sizes on the pattern, so I just had to be careful not to stray out of my size.

I used a tailor tack at each dot, and then drew the sewing lines with a chalk marker. Perfect and not difficult at all.

A couple pics on Emile. The inside - I was very short on fabric with only 3 yards, so I cut the front in two pieces instead of on the fold. The center front seam is pressed opened and topstitched down.

And the outside. I could have cut the back in two pieces instead of the front, but I try to avoid center back seams on a knit dress. They tend to stretch out at the stitches and just don't wear well.

A few more notes on sewing and finishing:

• I sewed the size Medium, which was perfect. The sleeves and the hem were long enough for me (I'm 5'7"), so both might be a little long on someone shorter. However, the pattern has lengthen/shorten lines in the sleeve, torso, and skirt, so alteration would be easy.

• A few sewists mentioned a concern about the width of the hem and ease of stride. So I added 4" at the hem (1" on each side, back and front) and cured it back into the pattern about 12" below the waist. It worked great, and I'm glad I added to the width.

• The shoulders were a little wide on me, so I trimmed off 1/2" at the outside of the shoulder and redrew the armscye to accommodate the change. The sleeve cap was fine without any changes. 

• The pattern uses a neck band, but I bound it instead - binding is just more comfortable for me. I also trimmed about 5/8" from the neckline first. I might have a big head...

I used a very lightweight rayon/lycra knit with 4-way stretch, which is heavenly to wear, but requires some careful finishing. Particularly because it wanted to run if I pulled at the cut edges. What!?  I picked this up from Fabric Mart's pre-cut fabric sale for a couple dollars a yard. It's not great fabric, the color is a bit uneven, almost stippled. But it was perfect for this muslin version of the pattern.

• My shoulder seams have a enclosed strip of knit tricot fusible, cut with the grain to reduce stretch in the fusible and stabilize the seam. I finished the seam with a flat fell on the inside and topstitching outside.

• I used an elastic stitch throughout, including the darts and hems. And serged/cut all the long seams together at about 3/8". The armscye seam is pressed toward the dress and topstitched (visible in the last pic).  

Time for a view of the back - pretty sassy :-)

Borrowing an expression, I'm pretty chuffed with this dress! And I plan a follow-up soon, in a nicer fabric.

A little parting tip: Knits, whether in a dress or a tee, can invite a wardrobe malfunction for anyone who wears unpadded lingerie. I love these thin foam bra liners :-)

And I'm off to watch the Parade of Roses. Ciao! Coco

Vogue 1297 Knit Dress - no-fear sewing...

No fear - I've had this Sandra Betzina pattern for a couple years (I think it was released in 2012), but I just couldn't commit to sewing it. I always liked it, but the pics on the envelope are not especially appealing. I don't care for the solid version, styled with a shirt, and I think the striped version is over-doing the look. I just don't like to feel like a dress is wearing me.

The design reminds me a little bit of the Marcy Tilton French Housedress, because of the drooping sides (the housedress has huge pockets). And also the StyleArc Toni Designer dress that I made recently. Feeling bold, I decided to take the leap and finally sew this one.

It helped that I had 3 yards of lightweight rayon/lycra jersey that I picked up from Fabric Mart's pre-cut sale - it was only $8.20. That's a great price for a knit muslin.

The fun here is in the details. I really like the side flaps!

Of course they fall down, as they should, and look pretty interesting. Coming...

and going!

The dress is really comfortable to wear, but it is surprisingly body-conscious. The weight of the skirt/side panels keeps the bodice close to the body. The pattern has bust darts, not always seen in a pattern for knits, and they really help to maintain the shaping in the bodice.

Some sewing notes:

• I sewed View B in size C (I'm 5'7", 35.5" bust). Betzina's sizing is a little funky - size A to I, aligned to a finished bust of 32" - 54".

• The bust darts are really really long. I shortened them by 1.5".

• And the side panel is huge! And the pattern for the panel is the same for all sizes. It's not proportionate. I was a little shocked - Betzina has such a rep for design, details, and patterns. And this is a high-impact  oversight.
  
  Another surprise - the cutting layout has the panel for View B going across the grain. Which means the stretch for many knits would be vertical, not horizontal. One reviewer mentioned that her panels dropped quite a bit due to the stretch being vertical.
  
  Solution to all of the above: I took 5" out of the center of the panel. The altered pattern fits on the grain with the fabric folded selvedge to selvedge, and the stretch goes the right way, around the body, not up and down. 

• Last change - I left off the pockets, and added long sleeves. I checked the armscye against M6747, and only had to extend the outside shoulder about 1/2". The sleeve from the McCalls pattern was a great fit.

A couple more comments: 

• Betzina mentions that this can be done in a woven fabric, with attention to sizing in the bust. I think View B, sleeveless, would be lovely in a lightweight linen or rayon crepe.

• The instructions are decent, and they include lots of help with stitches, seam and hem finishes, volumes on attachment of the bindings. But they really fall down on the hardest part of the pattern, which is sewing the panels to the center front and back. Three pieces come together in peaked join - all those seam allowances get wonky and in the way of one another. It's difficult to finish the area cleanly. And she takes a pass on how to handle that area of detail...

But back to my dress - I really like it. I wore it out this morning, loved it, and felt pretty in it. Winner. 

Bye for now - Coco

StyleArc Winsome Designer Dress - into the unknown...

I'm on a StyleArc roll!

And you can tell from the twirly pic that this worked.

When StyleArc released the Winsome Dress pattern recently, I was sold immediately - I love the drawstring detail on the back. I would have bought the pattern just for that - I smoosh and hack patterns all the time. But I was also drawn by all the piecing and seams. And draped pockets and asymmetrical hem. There's a lot going on in this pattern...

I'm always more comfortable starting a new pattern if I can find reviews and tips from other sewists. In this case, I couldn't find any. There are just a couple photos on the StyleArc site, and the dress shown is done in a woven fabric. The suggested fabrics: Crepe, silk, rayon or any fabric that drapes.

So of course I chose to do this in a thin rayon/lycra jersey with 4-way stretch! No-fear sewing for the holidays...but it worked :-)

The fabric looks wavey in some of these pics. But it's really just heathered, no waves or stripes.

My sewing notes:

• I purchased the PDF version, the 10-12-14 bundle, and sewed size 10.

• I lengthened the dress pieces by 2" using the lengthen/shorten lines on the pattern (I'm 5'7", and the extra 2" are perfect). 

• And I added 4" to the sleeve, just because I didn't want to come up short. A couple inches would have been enough. 

• As usual, I drafted my pattern with 1/2" seam allowances everywhere (StyleArc includes 3/8" seam allowances in the main bits of the pattern and 1/4" allowances at the neckline).

• I didn't sew the front button placket - that's scary sewing on a thin knit. And IMHO, the placket is kind of  the wrong vibe for this dress - it seems so sporty. Instead, I trimmed about 1/4" from the neckline (I tested to be sure it would go over my head) and finished it with self-fabric binding.  

Sewing the back drawstring casing was easy and fun. Those buttonholes - practice, practice. Putting a buttonhole into knit fabric can be challenging. I settled on a mid-weight fusible non-woven interfacing to stabilize the area, then trimmed away the excess once the buttonholes were done.

A couple pics of the casing and drawstring - so pretty!

The sleeves were way too wide, although they might be fine in a woven fabric. I trimmed away quite a bit (1" or so) from the sleeve seam, continuing under the armscye, and down for about 5". In my next knit version, I'm going to use the armscye and sleeve from a knit dress, maybe M6747.

So - Black Friday. I did my part,  and the stash will be much fatter for it. I also got the Nook Samsung Galaxy Tab A, a Barnes & Noble special offer!! It's terrific. Small, light, slips easily into my handbag, and I can do everything on it! Much better than my old IPad and original Nook. I'm feeling so spoiled.

Bye for now - Coco

StyleArc Toni Designer Dress - start, stop, start again...

Another StyleArc journey - my love affair with them has been intermittent at best! Their wishful line art and drawings are right up there with Hot Patterns. What you see is not always what you get.

I'm a forewarned and an experienced warrior.

However - I've been looking for alternatives to my 'usual' maxi dresses. I get bored! And this dress has intrigued me. I read as many reviews as I could find. And explored images online. I finally took the plunge, bought it (PDF version), and spent a morning with tape and scissors.

I knew going in that I would not do the collar. I don't like collars - not on me and not on most people. Oops - that's a lot of sewists. But it's a personal hang-up. My father insisted that I wear pointed collar shirts in a time when all my friends were wearing peter pan collars. It was painful, and the feelings apparently linger.

Anyway - on to this dress. Fortunately it has a lovely v-neck opportunity without the collar.

I also had to think about fabric. StyleArc suggests 'silk, crepe, rayon, suitable knit'. Since they don't provide examples, I looked at what others had done, and decided that the defining factor was drape. So I decided to try a rayon crepe - read that as drape with a burst of color!

I love how colors vibrate on rayon fabrics. Much more than on cottons, linens, and wool.

Working with this large print - the vertical repeat is a whopping 34" - I decided to cut both the front and the back on the fold. I just didn't want to break up those definitive blossoms.

The fabric is from Fabric Mart, one of their pre-cut buyout offerings. This one was 4 yards for $16. Incredible.

A few sewing notes:

• I sewed the size 10. I'm 5'7, with a full bust of 35.5"  - 36". The hip measurement on this pattern is not a defining factor, as there is lots of fabric in that area. 

• But I did add 2" to the length, using the pattern's lengthen/shorten lines. 

• The biggest change I made was to the line of the side drape. And I have to credit Ruth at CoreCouture for this one - I followed her lead and changed the pattern at the sides, removing some of the outward 'poke', as below.

• Several sewists suggested that the pattern is a little narrow at the hemline and might benefit from a back slit for walking ease. So I extended the hem outwards by 1", all side seams (as above in my draft), adding a total of 4". And the result works great. It's comfortable in all situations.

• I also drafted all my pattern pieces with a 1/2" seam allowance. StyleArc uses 3/8" for seams and 1/4" for necklines and collars. Their reasoning is beyond me, but because I use the PDF versions of their patterns, I can suit myself. 

• I used the facing from the pattern, but did it in cotton lawn, interfaced with knit tricot fusible. I really wanted to stabilize the neckline, something a self-fabric facing would not have done. 

Lots of clipping and basting to turn the facing at the bottom of the v-neck...

About the fabric. I sew with rayon challis a lot, and love it. I enjoy sewing it, and I enjoy wearing it even more. I was curious about rayon crepe, new to me, and I found that it sews pretty much the same as challis. It slips around, moves on any bias, ravels a little more than challis, and has a mind of its own! 

I don't write tutorials myself - I get very irritated by the raft of sewist who do, with poor technique and, often, worse sewing examples. (BTW - I 'unfollow' any blogs that start doing tutorials - I'm that irritated!) But I do try to find good sources and information that I can share. Here's a link to an article, on Sew4Home, that is a nice discussion of fabrics like rayon crepe:

http://www.sew4home.com/tips-resources/sewing-tips-tricks/happy-holidays-freespirit-rowan-working-rayon-and-linen

Time for a pic:

The start, stop, and start again...I tossed this dress in the bin twice while I was working on it. It was decidely awful before I got the side seams done and got a good look at it :-)

But I really like it! and I plan more. It's delightful to wear, fun and a little off-beat. 

Ciao! Coco